


We've Been Waiting for You

by KatMorningstar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4454843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatMorningstar/pseuds/KatMorningstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of linked but not necessarily sequential oneshot/promptfill things. Clarke, Bellamy, and Murphy are neighbors.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spider

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: “I live next door and I heard screaming so I came over thinking someone was getting murdered and now we’re both trying to get the spider out of your apartment”  
> Title from the Three's Company theme (and totally not as menacing as it sounds).

Clarke had just fitted her key into the lock, wanting nothing more than to take off her bra and these awful heels, when a scream echoed across the hallway. A masculine scream. Coming from 5B. With any other neighbor, she would calmly walk over and check to see if they were okay. But 5B wasn’t any other neighbor-- 5B was Bellamy Blake, all stoic and alpha male and certainly not the type to scream unless he had recently been divested of a limb. Maybe not even then. 

(She remembered when his new refrigerator had been delivered. He had, in the process of trying to move it himself, dropped the entire thing onto his foot and silently limped over to her apartment for an unofficial diagnosis. Clarke had driven a quietly fuming Bellamy to the hospital to have his unquestionably broken foot treated by an actual doctor.) 

So, given Bellamy’s track record with screaming and, more importantly, not screaming, Clarke felt it was entirely reasonable to head for his door at a full sprint. It wasn’t terribly surprising to find his apartment door unlocked-- sometimes he was literally the Absentminded Professor-- and she didn’t hesitate to let herself in.

“Bellamy?” she called. “What the hell is going on?”

She was answered with a series of crashes, a wet thud, and, “Fucking-- Clarke, get in here!” 

Was his voice coming from the bathroom? Christ. Clarke darted down the hallway and skidded to a stop just outside the bathroom door. “Can I come in?”

“I just said--,” he huffed, “ _yes,_ you can come in! Hurry.”

Flinging open the door, she took in the ruined bathroom: bottles of shampoo and conditioner strewn across the floor, improbably huge puddles, and Bellamy, covered only by a strategically placed washcloth. 

Just as she opened her mouth to ask...literally any question, Bellamy demanded, “Is there a spider on me?”

“Is there a _what_?”

His lips thinned to a white line. “Jesus, Griffin, a spider! Seriously look.”

“That’s what you were screaming about?” she asked, cheeks twitching as she looked him over with the most serious face she could manage. “As far as I can tell, you’re spider-free. Unless it’s hiding under that washcloth,” she added, “but you’ll have to check that yourself.” 

He didn’t seem convinced. “You didn’t even look close at all.” Leaning forward without stepping out of the shower, he snatched her arm and pulled her in until she was roughly four inches away. Her heel chose this particular moment to catch on the rough grout of his tiled floor, then skid in one of those lake-like puddles, slinging her upper body forward into her very naked neighbor. Elbow-first, if his loud wheeze was any indication. They crumpled to the floor of his shower with the all grace of a Jenga tower collapse. Clarke’s head smacked against a shelf, and Bellamy’s knee hit the glass wall so hard Clarke half expected it to shatter.

Clarke groaned softly, and a still-dazed Bellamy gave her head a heavy but well-meant pat, which, frankly, only made it ache worse. “You son of a bitch,” she panted. “I only came in here because I thought you were dying, and now I’m concussed over a spider.” 

He shot her a glare that would’ve been venomous if his eyes hadn’t been so obviously unfocused. “It was on me, Clarke. I was naked and vulnerable in here, and it just dropped on my shoulder out of fucking nowhere. And it was big.” 

“You didn’t scream when Murphy accidentally hit you with his car in the parking lot,” she growled. “You’re telling me a spider landing on you was worse than that?”

“Accident my ass. But did you not hear me say it was _on me_? While I was naked?”

She scoffed. “You’re weak, Blake. And in case you didn’t notice, no past tense necessary. You’re still naked.” 

“And you’re an asshole.” Seeming to see her properly for the first time, he added, non sequitur, “You look nice.” 

“Seriously? I look like the president of the Junior League. Marcus is trying to get GOP support for his Senate run, so bland and conservative was the name of the game.” She flicked at the long hem of her boxy Lilly Pulitzer sheath in disgust. “My mother sent this over yesterday.” 

Bellamy just rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You still look nice.” 

“Thanks, you too,” she joked. 

“Oh?” Bellamy quirked an eyebrow and angled his head. Eyes suddenly hooded, he tipped his head ever so slightly closer. 

If this were a movie, Clarke would’ve hesitated for one tense moment before leaning in to meet him. Instead, she sat still for a second, eyes narrowed, then cocked her head in confusion. Before she could even register the grin spreading across Bellamy’s face, he darted an arm across her and wrenched the shower handle to the left. Her confusion jolted into shock as she was sprayed with water so cold that it might’ve been pumped from the actual Arctic Ocean.

“What the fuck?” she shouted over the hiss of water on tile. 

Bellamy could only laugh, breathless and half-heartedly trying to scooch away from her and the showerhead’s blast radius. 

“You’re a dick,” Clarke proclaimed, hurling a bar of soap at his stomach by way of punctuation before reaching over to turn the shower off.

Sobering a little at last, Bellamy stood and offered Clarke the hand not occupied with preserving what little modesty he apparently had. “Come on, princess. I’ll get you a towel.” 

She shook her hair out like a golden retriever in his general direction. “What if this dress is dry-clean only?” she called after his retreating back.

Moments later, he returned and draped a towel over her head, nun-style, and tucked it under her chin. “You hate the dress,” he shrugged, not sounding apologetic in the least as he shuffled the shivering Clarke into the hallway. “But since you did come to my rescue, the least I can do is offer you a cup of coffee.” 

Clarke nodded in grumpy agreement from the couch. 

Eventually, Bellamy pushed a cup of pale coffee into her hands and settled onto the couch next to her with his own darker cup.

Sipping at her coffee, resentfully grateful, Clarke glared at him and groused, “I hope that spider crawls into your ear while you’re sleeping and lays eggs in there. _Tonight._ ”

His cup froze halfway to his now slightly slack mouth. “Why would you say something like that, Clarke?” 

She snorted into her mug. 

“Seriously, Clarke, what is wrong with you?”

A shrug.

“Is that a thing spiders do? Lay eggs in people’s ears?”

Another shrug.

“I’m Googling it, and I swear to God, if that’s a thing that happens, I’m sleeping at your place, and you can’t stop me.”

* * *

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Clarke snarked, tossing a pillow and two throw blankets onto her couch where Bellamy was rooted, unmovable. 

He snatched up the blankets and watched as Clarke unceremoniously abandoned him for her own bed. “You’re an ass,” he hollered, settling into his couch nest with a deep frown. 

From her room down the hall, Clarke was fairly sure she could hear him grumbling about spiders and ears and “so fucked up” until his murmurs were replaced by silence, then snores.


	2. Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on: “you have a pet in your dorm and I have to help you hide it from the RA” college au, but obviously very tweaked.

Bellamy Blake  
7:05 pm  
RED ALERT RED ALERT. Winston from management is “visiting” everybody, aka looking for lease violations. He’s at my place now, but not for long. Clarke, put something over that paint stain. Murphy, do something about Priscilla.

Clarke Griffin  
7:07 pm  
Thanks for the heads-up! @murph, what are you gonna do with the dog?

John Murphy  
7:08 pm  
????????? 

John Murphy  
7:08 pm  
SOS 

Clarke Griffin  
7:09 pm  
omw

 

Clarke tapped a fingernail against Murphy’s door as quietly as she could and hoped he could hear it. The door was promptly yanked open by a wide-eyed, dishevelled John Murphy. Under one arm, he cradled a squirming, snowy little bichon frise who seemed incredibly enthusiastic about seeing Clarke (or possibly just enthusiastic as a constant state of being). With a quick glance behind her, Clarke slipped inside.

“What am I gonna do with her?” he gestured wildly at the dog, as if it were unclear who he meant. 

“Ummm,” Clarke cast about, eyeing potential hiding places, “does she have a kennel or a crate or something?”

Murphy levelled a hard stare on her. “I don’t put her in a cage. I’m not a monster.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to put her somewhere!” She propped her hands on her hips, defying him to come up with a better solution.

“Jesus,” he dragged a hand across his eyes. “Can we just hide her in the bathroom?”

Clarke shook her head. “What if Winston asks to use it? Plus, if she barks, it’s gonna echo down to the first floor.”

“Priscilla is not a yappy dog,” Murphy replied, almost haughty, as he gave the dog’s chin a proud little scritch. “Can I just lay some blankets down in my closet and shut her in there? It’s a big closet, and I can put some of her toys in there too.”

“Good idea. No squeaky toys, though!”

As Murphy set about building Priscilla’s little closet blanket-fort, Clarke bustled around the kitchen, picking up dog toys and stuffing them into an ottoman. After a moment’s hesitation, she dumped out the food and water bowls and stashed them in one of the cabinets under the oven, next to some pots and pans. 

“Alright,” Murphy emerged into the kitchen looking slightly calmer, “she’s got a nice little pallet in the closet, and I put a towel in front of the door crack, just in case she does bark.” 

Just as Clarke was nodding approvingly, a loud knock came from the front door. She and Murphy exchanged a serious, “we’ve got this” nod, and he marched to the door with his chin at its usual defiant angle. 

“Mr. Murphy!” boomed a voice from the doorway. Winston. His boisterous cheer fooled precisely no one-- it was common knowledge that the building manager got his rocks off on nosing out lease violations and assessing penalty fees. “I’m just making my rounds, saying hello to everyone on the floor. How are you this evening?” 

“I’m good. Want to come in?” That’s what he was waiting for, anyway.

“Only if I’m not imposing,” Winston chortled, pushing his impressive girth past Murphy and into the kitchen. Spying Clarke, his grin grew even wider. “Miss Griffin! I just knocked on your door not two minutes ago, and here I was thinking I had the bad luck of missing you.” 

Clarke gave him the smile genetically transmitted to every child of a political dynasty. “Oh, trust me, Mr. Winston, I’m the lucky one.” And she was, because there was definitely a huge blue stain on her cream carpet from where her old easel had buckled, tipping her painting to the floor, paint-side down. If Winston “said hello” to her here, he would have no pretense under which to come into her apartment. 

As Winston shuffled fully into the kitchen, Bellamy suddenly became visible from his place formerly hidden behind the building manager’s bulk.

“What are you doing here?” Clarke asked, not impolitely.

“Oh, Mr. Blake insisted on walking me over.” Mr. Winston’s magnolia drawl came from the corner of the room where he was wiping something with his fingertip and peering at it through his bifocals. Satisfied, he trundled, uninvited, into the living room.

“Backup,” Bellamy mouthed. Clarke gave him a grateful thumbs-up, and Murphy did the best approximation of a smile he could manage at anyone that walked on two legs.

“Are you still working at that, uh,” Winston searched, figuratively, as he literally searched through the mail sitting on Murphy’s coffee table, “dog place?”

“No-kill shelter,” Murphy corrected, making an admirable effort not to grit his teeth. After spending eight years on the MMA circuit as a ruthless featherweight champ known more for his bloodlust than technical skill, Murphy had retired with a fat nest egg and used some of it to open a no-kill animal shelter. It took in all kinds of animals, it was his baby, and it certainly was not a “dog place”. “And I own it. But yes, I am still working there.” 

Winston hummed, then abruptly stopped humming. “What in sam hill is this?” He straightened from where he had been unsubtly rooting through Murphy’s couch cushions and held up a tiny purple sock. It was too wide to be a baby sock, and too long. It was, in point of fact, one of Priscilla’s leggings, knitted for her by Murphy’s friend Monroe back in February, when the snow was at its worst and Murphy was worried the fluffy dog might catch a cold. 

“That’s uh,” Murphy floundered, gears visibly slipping in his brain as he tried to think of some alternate purpose for a tiny dog legging. “It’s, um--”

“It’s mine,” Bellamy jumped in smoothly. 

“But what is it?” Winston demanded, clearly bumfuzzled by the woolen tube.

“Well,” Bellamy shifted, “it’s kind of like a glove. For winter.”

That seemed to only fuel Winston’s curiosity. “Where would you even put something like this? What does it do?”

Bellamy gave him a significant look and cleared his throat. “It helps with, uh...shrinkage.”

Winston couldn’t have dropped the legging faster if it had suddenly gone up in flames. Wiping his hand on his pants and making a lot of harrumphing sounds under his moustache, he looked down at the legging, which was long and wide enough to fit one of Priscilla’s legs comfortably. “Well, ah, um, ahem. Congratulations. I’ll just be on my way, then.” He moved through the living room, past the kitchen, out of the door faster than any of them would’ve ever thought him capable, hastily throwing a mumbled, “Lovely to see y’all,” over his shoulder.

Murphy flopped his whole body onto the couch and cackled into a pillow while Clarke and Bellamy stood, vibrating with suppressed laughter. 

“You told him,” Murphy gasped, voice muffled by the pillow, “that it was a dick cozy?”

“You weren’t saying anything!” Bellamy dropped onto the ottoman, arms spread in a “what was I supposed to do?” sort of W. 

“And he congratulated you on having a dick the size of a dog leg!” Murphy added, the last word transforming into a grunt as Clarke sat heavily on his legs. “That man is never gonna look at you the same.” 

As the two boys (technically men, but since they were currently laughing about a dick joke, they were boys) howled and snorted, Clarke caught her breath. “You know,” she pointed out, wiping away a little tear, “eventually, he’s gonna wonder why your penis sweater was buried in Murphy’s couch.”

That shut them up. 

“He might not know Priscilla’s in the closet,” she started cracking up again, forcing out the last words, “but now he definitely thinks you two are!” 

The boys exchanged a considering look. 

“I could do worse,” Bellamy shrugged, just as Murphy said, “I'd hit it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never done Murphamy before, and it's been long overdue. Also, Murphy and I share the opinion that people who put their dogs in kennels for anything other than travel (or the occasional thunderstorm) are assholes who should not own dogs.


	3. Assault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said these are non-sequential? Let's go back to the first time they met...
> 
> Based on: “I opened my car door right as you rode your bike by and I am so sorry”

Bellamy Blake had woken up in some strange places in his life. Girls’ messy apartments, a sorority house or two, and once, memorably, under his desk. (The history department chair had come looking for him, and he just wasn’t having it, so he had hidden. You know, like a normal person sometimes does. And he had fallen asleep.) But never before had he woken up on the cold cement floor of a parking garage, a yellow blur hovering over him saying something that sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown, kind of wah-wah and indistinct. 

Eventually, both the figure and the words resolved themselves into things that made sense: a blonde girl was leaning over him, checking his pupils with a penlight, and saying, “Keep your eyes open. You might have a concussion.”

He lurched up, or he tried, but she pinned him down with surprising force. “Stay down for a minute. How do you feel?”

“Like...” he tried to remember how he had ended up on the ground. “I got hit by something. A door?”

She nodded, looking genuinely regretful. “Car door. And...flipped over it, a little bit. Sorry. In my defense, you kind of did ignore my brake lights and zoom right in on your little bike. I really didn’t see you at all.”

“How did you not see me? Anyway, you’re the worst at apologies for someone who literally opened their car door just in time for me to smash into it at a fairly high speed.” 

“Whatever. My door sustained more damage than your bike and your body put together. Which I will happily pay for. And I’m taking care of you. Now, up.” 

He took the forearms she offered and hauled himself to his feet. “I don’t think shining a light in my eyes and helping me off the ground-- _where you put me_ \-- counts as medical care.” 

“It doesn’t,” she allowed, “but you live alone, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed, hesitant. “How do you know that?”

“Because you just moved into 5B, what, a week ago? I’m 5A, and I didn’t hear anyone talking when you were doing all your moving-in stuff.” She paused. “For the record, I was going to stop by and do the whole, ‘Hi, welcome to the building,’ thing eventually. I’ve just been really busy.” 

“It’s fine. But what does me living alone have to do with anything?”

“Well, there’s the tiniest chance you might have a concussion, and you don’t have anyone to keep you awake, so I’m dragging you to my apartment to watch you until you’re out of the woods. I’ll even feed you.” A shrug. “Mostly because I’m hungry and don’t want to wait for you to leave, but free food is free food.”

“What,” he shook his head, dazed. “Can you at least tell me who you are before you add kidnapping to assault?”

The girl scooped up his messenger bag and draped it over his shoulder before wheeling his discarded bike over to one of the bike racks that lined the walls and locked it in. Once she was back in front of him, she gave him a little shove in the direction of the elevator. “Walk and talk. I’m Clarke Griffin, full-time tattoo artist, part-time artist artist. Raised by the doctoriest of doctors and also totally used to people fainting at the shop, so therefore more than qualified to provide some level of basic medical care. Who are you?”

“Uh,” he punched the button for the fifth floor, “Bellamy Blake. History professor over at Ark, specializing in classics and antiquity. I’ve never fainted before, but I’ve been in a few fights, so I think I have a pretty thick skull.”

“You must,” Clarke nodded fervently, “if you have the presence of mind to include details like ‘specializing in classics and antiquity.’ Yikes.” 

Bellamy regarded her incredulously. “How are you this much of a dick? Shouldn’t you be nice to me right now?”

She made a vague “I dunno” noise. “I don’t see that’ll help the potential concussion, but whatever you say, Professor Blake.”

“Dr. Blake,” he grumbled. “But also just Bellamy. I would be very creeped out by you calling me Dr. Blake.” 

“Bellamy it is,” she agreed as the elevator dinged. She gave him a proprietary little push and steered him toward her apartment.

“I’m not a delicate flower,” he groused. “You don’t have to move me places.” 

“Right now, you kind of are,” she shushed distractedly, extracting her keys from her bag. Swinging her door open, she held up her hands and pointedly did not move him. “Couch, please.” 

Bellamy shuffled into her apartment, found the living room, and flumped onto the soft blue couch. 

“You can lie down, but don’t close your eyes,” Clarke called from the kitchen, where she was pulling several tupperware containers out of her fridge.

He didn’t reply as he surveyed her living room. The walls were covered in a strange hodgepodge of artwork-- a watercolor painting of a huge Victorian house by the doorway, a tasteful black and white photograph of someone’s back (and the all-encompassing tattoo that scrolled across it) on the wall facing him, and a square abstract in oils next to the TV, not to mention the intricate wooden sculptures on her bookcase that looked handmade. 

“Is all this stuff yours?” he asked, loudly enough that she could hear him over the clatter of dishes.

“Do you mean the contents of my apartment? Yes. I haven’t stolen any of it.’

“I meant the art, dick.” 

She peeked her head into the living room looking vaguely disgruntled. “God, no. I mean, the big photo print is mine, and I did the tattoo in it, but that’s it. No artist wants to hang their own stuff in their house. Yuck.” 

“How was I supposed to know?” 

She didn’t reply, only popped a plate into the microwave and poured water into two glasses.

“These wooden things look familiar, by the way. Did you get them from someone local?”

Clarke came back in and perched on the arm of a chair. “Yeah, a guy I work with, actually. His name’s Lincoln, and as good as he is with tattoos, he’s somehow even better with organic materials. Well,” she amended, “plant materials. The human body is about as organic as it gets.”  
As the microwave beeped, she left him again to put another plate in. 

After a long moment, he called, “That explains it-- I know Lincoln. He’s engaged to my sister, so I’ve been to a few of his gallery shows.” 

“No way! You’re Octavia’s brother? She’s been by the shop a couple of times. I like her. And I can definitely see some resemblance, apart from the fact that she seems like a nice person.” 

Before he could confirm, she came back in and pressed a glass of water into his hands. “Drink that.”

“I’m glad you specified. I was planning on pouring it all over myself, Flashdance-style.”

Finally, she rounded the corner with plates and silverware in her hands. “Please put food in your mouth and stop talking.” 

After a few minutes, he asked, "Do you have any tattoos, or do you just do them?" Then, "My sister doesn't have any tattoos does she?"

She scoffed. "First off, I resent the implication that someone shouldn't have tattoos. But yeah, I have a few. And your sister's life is her business." 

Without quite knowing where the question came from, he asked, "Can I see?" He'd always kind of wanted one but hadn't been able to settle on a design.

Eyeing him, she said, "I don't mind showing them off under the right circumstances, but with where they're placed... Maybe this is a premature judgement, but I'm like 75% sure you will never have the opportunity to see them. Same goes for your sister."

Bellamy shook his head ruefully. “You know, this is the worst first date I’ve ever been on.” 

Clarke just laughed and took another bite of her pot roast. “Well, you know, I usually start dates by knocking the person out metaphorically, rather than literally, and also, I don’t date people who might have concussions at the time. So.”

“Too bad,” he informed her. “This could’ve been an excellent meet-cute to tell our grandchildren about.” 

“If I hit you in the head when you might already have some brain trauma, do you think it would it kill you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special credit to sicsempertarantulas for ranting to me about how, despite what a lot of fanfiction says, an artist would NEVER hang her own work in her home. (And also it's her birthday.)


	4. Yelp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my best friend owns a restaurant and you wrote a bad review of it in the local paper so it has become my goal to track you down and fight you” au
> 
> didn't wanna do the local paper, so it's Yelp instead? do people still use Yelp? who knows

Miller’s restaurant had been open for a month before it got its first bad review. Bellamy knew this because he had been watching its Yelp, Urbanspoon, and Facebook pages like a hawk. Best friends means never having to say you're sorry for setting up a Google Alert for their shit.

Looking back on it, the review wasn’t horrible or even terribly unfair. But hindsight is 20/20 and the sight of those two and a half stars had affixed his rage goggles firmly in place. How could anyone speak ill of this restaurant that had been Miller’s baby for the last six months, and for the five years before that when he was working his ass off and building his credit so he could afford to buy it in the first place? Maybe it had been a little sloppy for the first few weeks, but--

“Listen to this bullshit!” he called to Monty, who was currently more focused on doing another playthrough of the new Dragon Age, making all the evil choices. He was mindblowingly bad at it. “‘This place had been open for two weeks, and yet everything still seemed scattered. My first two food choices were unavailable because the kitchen had run out of the ingredients, some of the servers seemed confused about which tables were theirs, and my water glass was pretty dirty. That seems petty to say, but...gross.’ Are they for real?” 

Monty shrugged, without turning to look at him. “I mean, they’re not wrong. Maybe a little harsh, but they didn’t make anything up.” Thoughtfully, he added, “And kudos to you for the gender-neutral pronoun. Me and Miller really rebuilt you from the ground up in college.”

Bellamy chose to ignore him, shifting on his barstool. “Oh, did I tell you they mentioned you? By name, like an asshole.”

“Seriously? What’d they say?” 

“Now you’re interested,” Bellamy rolled his eyes. 

“Just curious,” Monty allowed. “I’d never been a waiter before. I assume I didn’t do well?” 

“Just listen. ‘Our server-- I think his nametag said Monty, and you don’t really forget a name like that-- was okay. I mean, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. But he is very obviously not a server by trade and probably just somebody’s friend, filling in until they get the staff together. Which brings me back to my overall point: I get that they just opened, but why open if you don’t have your shit together? Why not take an extra few days, do some dry runs, make sure inventory is squared away? I’m no restaurateur, but that seems pretty obvious.’”

Monty snorted. “I see what you mean about them coming off like an asshole, but they didn’t actually say anything rude about me. I am 100% the owner’s boyfriend, filling in until they get the staff together. What part of that’s offensive? And you act like I didn’t tell Nate to do some dry runs.” 

“It’s just...” Bellamy shook his head with obvious scorn. “How condescending can they be? ‘I’m no restaurateur’? Seriously.” Then, an idea hit. “Hey. How willing would you be to work some of your computer voodoo and find out who this reviewer is?”

“Depends on why,” Monty replied. “How much are you gonna use that information to go kick their ass?” 

“That’s irrelevant. I just wanna know.”

“Huh. Fair enough. Do they have a douchey username or what?” 

Bellamy hadn’t even looked. “It’s...” he scrolled back to the top. “C E underscore Griff ninety. Wait, hang on.” Something about that struck a chord in his brain. CGriff. The first words of the review caught his eye again: _I was really hoping that David’s would be good, because it’s literally just around the corner from my shop..._ “Hold the fuck up. There is no way.”

Monty craned his neck to look back at him. “Wait, am I hanging on or holding the fuck up? Pretty sure I can’t do both.”

Bellamy dismissed him with a frustrated huff. “I think the reviewer is my fucking neighbor.”

“Which one? The MMA guy that could knock you out or the tattoo artist that _did_ knock you out?” 

“Okay, first off, Murphy’s retired, and I could totally take him. We’re not even in the same weight class. But anyway--”

“You’re a professor. You haven’t been in a fight in at least five years.”

“ _But anyway,_ I meant the tattoo artist. CE_Griff90? Clarke Griffin. Probably born in 1990, because she’s a child.”

“You were born in ‘87.” 

“And she said the restaurant is right around the corner from her shop. David’s is right around the corner from her place, Alpha Station.” 

“Have you been stalking your neighbor? Or are you thinking about getting a tattoo?”

“You’re missing the entire point. This girl concussed me, and now she’s talking shit about Miller’s restaurant. This will not stand.” 

“Didn’t you say she doctored you up and fed you? And checked in with you the next day?”

“Again, Monty, the point. That isn’t it.” Bellamy was getting genuinely worked up now. 

“Well,” Monty mused, “if you want to go beat her up, I’m pretty sure I heard her door close like twenty minutes ago, so she’s probably home. You could hold your own.” He snickered. “Unless she’s got a car door hidden in her apartment.”

“That’s not funny,” he grumbled, distracted. Then he was all focus. “You know what. I am. I’m going over there.”

“Do you want me to--” Bellamy was already gone.

 

 

“What the hell is your problem?” Clarke demanded. “What is so important that you needed to knock _fourteen times?_ ” 

“Are you CE_Griff90?” he demanded. Admittedly, that question sounded a lot less weird in his head. Maybe if he hadn't pronounced the underscore. “On Yelp, I mean.”

Her anger shifted to suspicion. “Yeah. Why do you know that?” 

“You left a bad review of my friend’s restaurant.” A lot of his rage had pretty much quailed and vanished in the face of hers, but he still managed to sound accusatory. 

“So you came over to, what? Ask me to take it down?”

 _Or fight you, yeah._ “Something like that.” Bellamy took in what she was wearing. Jeans and a sweater, probably the same thing she’d worn to work, no shoes. “What are you doing right now?”

That threw her. “Nothing? I was about to make a sandwich and watch Netflix. Why?”

“A sandwich isn’t dinner. Go put some shoes on.” At her nonplussed look, he sighed, “We’re going back to David’s, and you’re gonna revise your review.” 

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He added, “I’m paying, so you have no reason to say no, unless you’re just being an asshole. Which, frankly...” 

“Shut up.” Clarke stuffed her feet into a pair of Converse that had, he assumed, been sitting by the door. “Do I need to get my keys? Last I checked, that bike of yours only has one seat, and I guarantee I won’t fit on your handlebars. Or do you have those little pegs?” 

Bellamy groaned and gave her a little shove toward the elevator. “I have a car.” 

 

Their waitress, Monroe, was one of Bellamy’s TA’s, and since he had put in a good word for her when she applied, she always gave him the best table in her section. Tonight, that was a corner booth in the very back. 

“Be right back to get your drink orders, Dr. Blake,” she promised, before bustling off to another table. David’s wasn’t exactly busy-- nor had it been, most nights-- but it looked like she might be covering someone else’s section too.

“Dr. Blake? Do you come here that often?” Clarke snorted. 

“Yep,” he admitted. “But she’s also my TA, so.”

Clarke hummed in acknowledgment from behind her menu, which he promptly plucked out of her hands. She just levelled him with a look that suggested she was highly unimpressed with him, both now specifically and in general. “Oh God. Are you that guy that orders other people’s food for them?”

He couldn’t help but sneer a little. “Only when that person left a shitty review for a great restaurant, so I’m forced to assume she doesn’t know what’s good.”

“Shouldn’t everything be good?”

A fair point. “Okay, everything is good. But there’s some stuff that’s really good.”

“Eloquent.”

“I’m serious. This is my friend Miller’s place, and he uses all his dad’s old recipes, which are what got us through college without dying of scurvy.” 

“A lot of citrus, then?”

He wanted to kick her under the table, but the angle was all wrong. They were sitting too close together on the curved bench. Which, unexpected, but okay. She smelled pretty nice. “You know what I mean. So, if you’re gonna do the whole amateur food critic thing--”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“--then you should want to get the best thing here. Right?” 

Grudgingly, she conceded the point. “Right. Is that why you’re so up in arms about the whole thing? Because you have all these fond memories attached to the food?”

He shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, it’s a restaurant, and the food is great. But like I said, Miller’s my best friend. I watched him save up the money to buy this place for years. I went to the bank with him when he applied for the loan. So I know how much it means to him. And obviously,” he gestured at the empty tables, “it’s not catching on as quickly as he’d like. So every review counts, you know?” 

“I get it,” she nodded. “Don’t forget, I’m a small business owner too. Granted, I didn’t have to take out a bunch of loans, but I know what having your own place is like. My thing is, we live in a college town. There are always gonna be college students that want tattoos, and I’m the best shop around. But the area’s already saturated with restaurants, all of which have their shit together. Why open so soon if everything isn’t ready?” 

Bellamy couldn’t help but grimace. If she hadn’t had to take out loans to get her shop, then she had money, and if she had money, she didn’t really understand. “If you know business, I’m sure you know how long it takes before you start to really turn a profit. What you don’t know is, the banks don’t give a shit about that. So either he starts making money, or he loses the restaurant and everything in it. And his dad’s a cop. Granted, he’s pretty high up, but they still don’t have family money. It’s not like he’s got a trust fund to fall back on.”

Clarke looked like she resented the implication, but she didn’t correct him. “Okay. I get it. And I feel a little guilty now, so I hope you’re satisfied.”

He was very satisfied, actually, and wanted to sing that song from Hamilton too, but he didn’t get the chance to voice either, as Monroe reappeared, order pad in hand. What happened next went so quickly that, if Clarke were asked to repeat it, even seconds later, she would be at a total loss.

“I,” she began. “I can’t be sure, but I feel like you just ordered enough for four people.”

Bellamy’s only explanation was, “Leftovers.” 

 

“Oh my God.” Clarke leaned back in the booth, chin dropping heavily to her chest. It was an exercise in willpower resisting the urge to unbutton her pants. “I take it all back. That was great. Can I sleep in the car in the way home? I'm done for.”

“You can sleep when you update your Yelp review,” Bellamy retorted, looking up from the leftovers he was divying into two boxes. 

“Just out of curiosity, how are you gonna stop me sleeping?”

He didn't miss a beat. “Repeatedly tap on the brakes until you have whiplash.”

“Wow. If I weren't going to already...” She accepted her takeout box and suddenly remembered their last encounter, also based around food and threats. “You know, this is the worst first date I've ever been on.”

Bellamy snorted and shook his head. “Cute.” He ducked his head and tried for unimpressed, but his smile wouldn't quite fade. He settled for grabbing his keys with a purposeful little jangle and sliding out of the booth. “Cmon.” 

If he had to guess, Clarke probably hadn’t meant to extend her hand as she slid out behind him-- probably a reflex of ingrained Old Money breeding-- but he took it and helped her out all the same. She seemed too drowsy to notice anyway, and yeah, she smelled great. Some weird sharp-and-floral mix of shampoo and sanitizer, and even better now with a hint of Italian food still clinging to her clothes. Good for her, he supposed. 

As they left, Monroe passed by them on Bellamy’s other side and gave him a little look, suggestive and congratulatory. 

Bellamy grimaced and rolled his eyes. Since telling your grad students to shut up was frowned upon, he settled for a stern, “You better have all those essays graded on Monday.” 

That was enough to send sheepishly her on her way. 

 

[⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️] Won Me Over  
by CE_Griff90

So, I left an earlier review that, upon further consideration, seemed a little harsh. (Obviously, I've since taken it down.) David's had only been open for a few weeks, and it's come to my attention that it's pretty normal for restaurants to start out a little out of sorts. But I went back this evening, and I've gotta say, it hasn't taken long for the place to get its sea legs. 

The food is incredible, and if you didn't see my earlier review, I never said otherwise. But what was “good” on my first visit has only gotten better now that some housekeeping issues have been sorted out. Full disclosure, I'd like my leftovers to last until lunch tomorrow, but...they won't. 

The disorganization I originally took issue with seems to have been cleared up in a remarkably short time. They're still a little understaffed, but that just means that if you need a job, I’d encourage you to apply. The atmosphere is warm and utterly welcoming-- Olive Garden should have a picture of David’s taped to its mirror that it looks at longingly every morning. Owner and Executive Chef Nathan Miller’s passion is obvious, from the food to the sheer energy of the place. From what I've heard, all the recipes are his father’s (as is the name), and he seems to take great care in honoring the family tradition. 

tl;dr I'm a proud convert. If you went to David's in its first few weeks and weren't impressed, I urge you to give it another shot. You won't regret it. And if you haven't been, go! You'll probably see me there, in a corner booth that I fully intend to claim ownership of. (Well, part ownership.) @davids just take my money.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh this was way more fun to write than the one epilogue or my actual novel, so Serious Projects can eat it. if you have any cool prompts, send em my way, and I'll try to use them either here or as a lil oneshot. (but I feel like I have more multichaps in me, so who knows?) come find me as maryam0revna on tumblr. my blog is trash but it's full of love (also angry feminism and zodiac posts).


	5. Stressed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on "i’m stressed and sleep-deprived, please let me pet your cat au"  
> Zero Bellamy in this chapter.  
> I'm talkin' 'bout some Clarke/Murphy friendship, y'all.  
> (Constant reminder that these are not in sequential order. Maybe someday.)

Murphy had been living on the 5th floor longer than Clarke had, but for some reason, they’d never spoken much before Bellamy moved in. 

Of course, after she moved in herself, Clarke had done the whole new-neighbor-flyby, after it became apparent that 5A wasn’t going to. They’d exchanged the most basic of pleasantries, and even then, Murphy gave off the cold, weary air of an old man that would really prefer if neighborhood children would stay off his lawn but refused to exert enough effort to yell at them. His only redeeming feature, really, was his illicit dog. 

And oddly enough, Bellamy moving into 5B only brought his neighbors closer together, united not necessarily _against_ the interloper, but at least in healthy skepticism.

“Have you met the new guy?” Clarke had asked, a few days after he moved in. Normally, she and Murphy didn’t speak during their shared elevator rides, but this seemed an acceptable exception.

“Negative,” Murphy frowned, thumbing the button for the first floor. “You?”

Clarke, mid-sip of coffee, made a garbled “nope” sound into her travel mug. 

“Well,” he made a face, “if I meet him and he seems like a murderer, I’ll let you know.”

“And vice versa, of course.” 

Relations had only improved from there, so Clarke supposed she had Bellamy to thank for the fact that she was standing in front of Murphy’s door, so tired that she might actually cry. Well, Bellamy and that dog. Sweet, sweet Priscilla... Clarke was of the “wand chooses the wizard” school of thought when it came to pets and sincerely believed that Priscilla would not have chosen a cruel owner. 

She knocked on the door to curtail her dog-thoughts before she actually did cry. It made no sense, but she knew herself well enough to know that it could happen.

As he swung open the door, Murphy could not have looked less amused if he were the queen of England. “Clarke.” His tone was simultaneously flat and warning. “It’s almost midnight.” 

She just nodded miserably. “I know. Look, I’m really stressed and really exhausted, and everything is kind of terrible, and-- can I please just come in and pet your dog?” 

He let the door swing open fully, revealing his other side, where Priscilla was tucked under his arm. “This dog?” 

“Yes.” Her voice wobbled but did not crack. 

“Oh my God,” he sighed as if it were an actual prayer, rolled his eyes, and held out the wriggling bichon frise. When Clarke accepted her, carefully and with a tiny gasp, he stood back. “Come on in, then.” 

Clarke shuffled into his living room, still cradling the dog, and settled into a chair before burying her face in Priscilla’s springy fur. Priscilla, for her part, accepted this outpouring of affection with as much grace as a creature that looked like it had a snowball for a head could muster, along with her usual enthusiasm. 

After a minute, Clarke felt something cold and hard tapping lightly against the crown of her head and extricated her face. Murphy stood at her side, a massive glass of orange juice in each hand. One of these he gave to her, the other he took to the sofa with him. 

“Orange juice?”

He just nodded. “It’s pretty impossible to be sad while drinking orange juice. It’s like drinking the sun.” 

For all its strangeness, she could find no real fault in this pronouncement and, accordingly, drained a quarter of her glass in one long quaff. “Thank you.” 

He nodded again. After a long moment of silence-- Clarke looking longingly at Priscilla, Murphy looking grimly at Clarke-- he leaned back and groaned. “Okay, what’s your deal? What’s wrong? I literally never invite people to tell me about their shit, but you showed up at midnight asking to pet my dog. You look awful, completely apart from the fact that you have paint _inside_ your nose. So. Go ahead. Do the,” he made a talky sock puppet gesture with his non-juice-holding hand, “thing.” 

“I,” she fumbled, having fully expected Murphy to let her sit in silence with his dog. “It’s just a whole bunch of stuff.”

“So make a list. But, you know, a condensed, bullet-point type list.”

Hmm. “Okay.” She held up a finger. “Point one, this little shit came into my shop today and tried to get me to do this godawful sexist bullshit tattoo on him. All I’ll say is that it involved women and sandwiches. Point two, when I said not just no but no and also go fuck yourself, don’t ever come back here, he threw a fit like the giant manchild he was and knocked a ton of stuff over. Point three, my other artist doubles as a kind of bouncer, and when he went to escort this weasel out, the aforementioned weasel had the balls to appeal to _him_ to do the tattoo, like, man to man, or whatever. Obviously, Lincoln would never, and he pretty much threw him out on his ass, but it still happened, and I’m still pissed.” 

“Keep going,” Murphy said as he stood and looped back around to the kitchen. “I’m still listening.” Ultimately, she didn’t get the chance, as he was back in all of two seconds, now proffering a bottle of vodka. 

At his offering slosh, Clarke raised her eyebrows and gave a firm, “Mm,” in the affirmative, holding out her glass. 

Once they were both generously topped up and thoroughly screwdriven, Murphy sat back down. If anything, he seemed more invested now, or at least amused with all the swearing. “Okay, so, points one through three: college-age boys are repulsive little bastards. Carry on.” 

“Yes! Thank you. They absolutely are,” Clarke toasted him. “So, yeah, point four, a girl came in after that to get some coordinates on her back. Long strings of numbers and a little compass rose-- pretty standard stuff, especially for the younger ones these past few years, no problem there. But we get to talking while I’m getting set up, and she tells me that she’s from Germany, just got a fellowship to stay and get her Ph.D here in the States. That’s gonna take some time, and it’s why she wanted this tattoo. The coordinates are actually for her father’s grave back in Waldenburg--”

“That’s not a real place in Germany,” Murphy snorted. “You just made up a German-sounding name.” 

“--which is totally a real place,” she continued, louder. “And point five is that I got my first tattoo after my dad died, and her thing just kinda caught me off-guard, which leads to point six, which is that I had to call my mom and basically wail into the phone. And our relationship has been a little strained for ages-- like, mostly strained but with a few short years between me coping with Dad’s death and her remarrying that were normal, and this is all point seven, by the way-- so really that probably did more harm than good?” 

Murphy didn’t even try to derail this speeding verbal train, choosing instead to drink his screwdriver like he was racing someone to the bottom. 

“And points nine through fucking thirty,” Clarke concluded, her voice only getting louder and more tremulous by the syllable, “are that my back hurts and my head hurts and today has just sucked!” She gave an angry sniffle and looked down. “And this dog is definitely helping, but not as fast as I’d like.”

“Hey, cut Priscilla some slack. She’s not a damn service dog. And,” he pointed out helpfully, “that still doesn’t explain why you have blue paint in your nose. Aren’t you artsy types supposed to have, I dunno, a single swipe of paint delicately smeared across your cheekbone or some shit? Or charmingly smudged behind your ear? Literally anywhere but inside your nose, I’m pretty sure.”

If this contribution was meant to lighten the mood, it did not. Clarke’s eyes only narrowed further as she exclaimed, “Oh! That’s right. I tried to paint-- because that’s a thing I’d like to do with my life, when I’m not drawing on people’s bodies to pay my bills-- and my easel just. Tipped over. Buckled, and tipped right the fuck over, onto the floor, grinding my wet canvas into the carpet. How paint got into my nose, I honestly don’t know, okay? But now I guess I’m a failure as a functional artist _and_ as a manic pixie dream girl artist too. If I ever meet some uptight straight white guy who just needs a little whimsy in his regimented life, I’ll never be that hot painter that makes him dance in the rain or start collecting vinyl or whatever else indie-girl bullshit they do in the movies. For a number of reasons, really, but also now because I can’t do accidentally-charming paint smears!”

Carefully, in dramatic counterpoint to his guest’s emotion-choked almost-yell, he asked, “Uh...do you _want_ to be a manic dream painter thing?”

“No!” She was now openly crying on Priscilla. 

“Huh. And, don’t take this the wrong way, or, I guess, do, it’s your call, but are you on your period?” 

“Yes!” she huffed, full of righteous indignation aimed less at the question (she’d never had any reason to think of Murphy as sensitive or tactful) and more at the fact of the situation itself.

Murphy flashed her a thumbs-up as he drained his glass. “Cool. Drink your drink.” 

He didn’t have to twist her arm, that was for sure. Since he seemed inclined to sit in silence, now that she had wrung herself out and was pretty much drip-drying, from the face, Clarke gathered Priscilla up closer in her arms and downed her drink as quickly as she could without physically drowning herself.

It took about three minutes to finish the drink, and about five more for it to really hit, but at the end of ten total minutes, Clarke was curled up and leaned back in Murphy’s recliner with a sleeping dog on her stomach. That, coupled with the comfort of a thorough verbal purge, reassured her that coming to Murphy’s had not actually been as awful an idea as she would’ve thought it to be, had she been in her right mind when she decided to do it. 

Her host had remained blessedly silent for the preceding ten minutes, choosing instead to stretch out on his sofa and enjoy a faint buzz of his own. When he did speak, it was to ask, “Hey, you ever talk to the new guy?”

“Bellamy? Yeah, once. He’s alright.” 

“D’I tell you I hit him with my car?”

She wrenched her neck to look at him. “You did not.”

“Yep. It was weird. I hit his actual body, and he didn’t make a peep, just went right down.”

Clarke choked out a single, hideous cackle. “He must be getting used to it. I hit him with my car door. Knocked him right off his bike.” 

“Shut up.”

“Twinsies.” 

“You are a lunatic. Seriously. Your life is a sewer, and knowing about you makes me tired.”

 

Clarke was pretty sure that having John Murphy call her life a sewer was probably one or two steps below rock bottom. It’d been a shitty day. She left his apartment covered in dog hair, having received no helpful input or human comfort of any kind, and with his number in her phone, only to be used for “real emergencies, when you need my perfect dog to come fix your awful life.” But all of that somehow added up to her not feeling so shitty anymore. And she saved his number with the twin-girls-with-bunny-ears emoji, so really, things were kind of looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written Murphy before this story, and never a Clarke/Murphy one-on-one friendship before this very chapter. Was it obvious? 
> 
> Was it also obvious that I'm sick of stories where Clarke walks around all sexily paint-bedaubed and has no idea? (Bellamy, I assume, goes home and jerks off thinking about girls that don't shower?) Yeah, I'm just here to tell y'all that that does not happen, in Real Life Painting Action, and when it does, it's not sexy. I once went to all my classes with green paint smudged up the back of my arm; I can only assume it looked like I was growing algae. 
> 
> ANWAY. Someone asked if I'd write the scene where Murphy hits Bellamy with his car. I will! And also pretty much any other off-page scene anyone is interested in. Also other prompts. Just...throw some stuff at me. (Not, like, garbage or hard projectiles. Ideas.)
> 
> (Finally, props to anyone that caught that this is the origin story of Clarke's giant paint stain from chapter 1.)


	6. Hannah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'we’re getting home at the same time and I notice you wear your shirt inside out, again' + 'please help me, I know you have a kid and my sibling just dropped their baby on me where’s the button to put them to sleep?' twofer

Don’t misunderstand-- Clarke was still pretty on the fence about Bellamy Blake, resident of 5B. Their only interactions so far had involved her knocking him unconscious with her car door-- not the best introduction-- and him basically dragging her to David’s-- ultimately a good experience but still weird. Honestly a very mixed bag, as neighborly relations go. So when she saw Bellamy stumbling into his apartment at 6 am twice in one week, looking rumpled and exhausted but smiling faintly both times, she refused to delve into or even acknowledge the strange and very confusing reaction that elicited in the back parts of her brain. So what if his shirt was on inside-out? The guy was getting laid. Good for him.

Yeah. Good for him.

Her questionably normal but unquestionably hot neighbor was allowed to do what he wanted, and his sex life was definitely, definitely none of her business. So when Lincoln questioned her about her very unsubtle flirting with a cute consult, the fact that his inside-out shirt flashed in her head was, in her opinion, open to interpretation.

“Sorry,” she stashed the sketch she had made for the other woman’s long tribal back tattoo in a folder. “My neighbor’s been hooking up with somebody recently, and it just reminded me how long it’s been.”

“By that,” Lincoln leaned against the counter, “do you mean your hermit neighbor who only likes dogs or my soon-to-be brother-in-law, whose sexual activities I would like to hear about never?”

“Oh, Bellamy, for sure. But it’s not like I can drown you in details. All I know is that he gets in right as I’m heading out, and this morning, his shirt was on inside out. Serious question: how good does the sex have to be for you to not notice that your shirt’s on inside out?” 

“Jesus, Clarke--” 

“No, seriously! Have you ever left Octavia’s with your clothes on wrong?” 

Lincoln shook his head. “We are not having this conversation, especially in conjunction with Bellamy. We’re just not.” He turned to go do something else, anything else really, but twisted to look back at her. “Here’s something to think about, though. It’s a Saturday. He doesn’t have to work today. So, if he got dressed really fast and crept out at, say, 5:30 am, it’s safe to say he’s not actually dating whoever he was with. And knowing him, he probably won’t see her again.” 

Clarke shook her head blankly. “So? What’s that got to with anything?” 

“So,” Lincoln gave a rare smirk, “you could get a piece of that, if you wanted to.” 

“A piece of--” She wouldn’t say she _spluttered_ , per se, and so what if there wasn’t a better word for it? “Absolutely not, no. We don’t even get along.” 

He looked unconvinced. “Didn’t you tell me you guys had dinner together last week?” 

“Yeah, but like. Not _dinner_ dinner.”

“Fake dinner.” 

“More like I gave the restaurant a bad review online and his friend owns it, so he wanted me to take it down, dinner.”

“Because that’s a thing.”

She shrugged helplessly. “Apparently. Anyway, shut up. This is counterproductive to what I’m trying to do.” 

“Which is...get laid? Because--”

“No ‘because’. Take my word for it that it’s not a possibility.”

“Whatever you say,” he muttered, tapping at his phone. His little smile meant he was texting Octavia, and Clarke couldn’t fight off the sudden fear at what he could possibly be telling her.

 

555-294-2687

8:15 pm

Do you know ANYTHING about children?

555-294-2687

8:15 pm

It’s Bellamy.

Clarke Griffin

8:16 pm

Oh. That makes your first message way less terrifying. I guess it depends on how old they are? I’m super good with babies and toddlers, but any older than that and they get kinda shitty. Talking, etc. Why?

Bellamy Blake

8:17 pm

Are you home? Can i come over?

Clarke Griffin

8:17 pm

Yeah, sure. Why are you freaking out? 

Clarke Griffin

8:18 pm

Did you get somebody pregnant? Because maybe that’s something to talk to your sister about, not me. 

Bellamy never replied to her text, but he did knock on her door fast enough for her to jump a little at the sound. Swinging open the door, she asked, “Were you just standing out there wai--” 

There were no words.

There, on her doorstep, stood Bellamy, face slack with exhaustion, at least one Cheerio in his hair, and glasses askew. Over one arm was a mint green diaper bag, and in the other was a red-faced baby-- eight months old at most, Clarke guessed-- far too fair-skinned to be his. She wore a onesie that might have originally been blue but was now more of a Jackson-Pollock-style work of splatter art. 

Bellamy looked dead on his feet, and she really didn’t know how to look at him holding a baby and not be painfully into it, so Clarke scooped the baby unceremoniously out of his arms and waved him in. Instead of going all the way into the living room, he just sort of stopped in the kitchen, dazed. 

When it became obvious that he was too out of it to explain without prompting, Clarke asked, “This isn’t like that show Baby Daddy, is it?” She gave the baby a sniff and made a face. She had about two minutes to get a fresh diaper on this kid before the crying started. “Some old girlfriend didn’t just drop this child off on your welcome mat, right?” She did a “gimme” hand at the diaper bag, which he gladly relinquished. 

“Not at all,” he shook his head, following her further into the apartment. “Remember my friend Miller?”

Clarke made an affirmative noise as she laid the baby down on her bed and began to strip off her soiled onesie and diaper with military precision. Pulling fresh ones from the diaper bag, she saw that it had the name Hannah embroidered across one side. Somehow, the baby did look like a Hannah.

“She’s his. Well, his and Monty’s. I’ve been helping out, when they needed to stay late at the restaurant and couldn’t get a sitter.” He ran a hand through his hair, shook his head. “I guess I got cocky, because I told them I’d take her for the weekend. Give them a break, you know?” 

“Bit off more than you could chew, huh?” Clarke straightened with Hannah, now clad in a fresh diaper and yellow onesie, on her hip and the dirty clothes in her hand.

“Pretty much,” Bellamy trailed after her, watching as she tossed the diaper into the trash and the clothes into her washing machine, along with one of those fat detergent packs that looked dangerously like candy. “Hannah’s great, but do you know how long it’s been since I’ve taken care of a baby for a whole day? Since Octavia was a baby, Clarke. Octavia’s in her twenties now. I thought I was ready for this. I was not ready. And now I have her for the whole weekend, because I can’t just give her back, but it’s like I completely forgot how to do this!” 

Jesus. He was officially a babbling wreck. Like, a very cute babbling wreck, since now that she’d noticed, there was no way to un-notice, but still. “I can tell. Take off your clothes.”

The fact that he barely blinked was a testament to how tired he was. Instead he just looked down at his stained clothes and nodded, like, “yeah, makes sense.” Clarke made a point of not looking away, but also not looking like she was checking him out either. Which was very misleading, because she absolutely was, and she really needed more handsome shirtless men in glasses in her life. But not this one. A different one, definitely, and under different circumstances. Eventually, he tossed his t-shirt and jeans into the washer and looked at her with numb expectation. 

She jerked her head back toward her room. “Go check my bottom drawer. I keep a lot of guy-sized sweatpants and shirts around for painting in. Should have something that fits you.” 

Instead of looking at his boxer-brief-clad ass as he padded back to her room ( _do not look_ ), she took a closer look at Hannah, who seemed mostly bald and gummy and happy, now that she was clean. Well, basically clean, since her chubby little hands and face were still kind of mysteriously sticky.

“Hi, Hannah,” she introduced herself softly. “I’m Clarke.” Hannah flailed one pudgy arm; Clarke caught it and shook her small hand with an air of friendly gravitas. “You hungry?”

Hannah lurched forward, bopping her forehead hard against Clarke’s nose and giggling.

“Sounds like a yes to me.” Clarke rooted through the diaper bag and eventually produced a bottle and a container of formula. “Besides, looking at the both of you, it doesn’t seem like your uncle Bellamy actually got any in your mouth last time.” 

“I resent that,” said Bellamy, without any real force behind it, as he rejoined them. "And I'm her godfather." He looked better, wearing a pair of Yale University sweats that had once belonged to Wells and a t-shirt emblazoned with “percussionists are better at banging”. He had also obviously washed his face, judging by the damp curls around his hairline. Gesturing at the shirt, he asked, “Were you in marching band?”

“No, were you?” As she waited for the formula to heat up, Clarke pulled a box of wipes out of the seemingly bottomless bag and scrubbed lightly at Hannah’s sticky face. It was easier than looking at her hot, stupid neighbor standing there in her painting clothes. Since when did he even wear glasses?

“If you weren’t in band, then why--? Never mind. No, I wasn’t either. Too busy raising my sister. Which is why I thought I could do this, by the way.”

Clarke exchanged a sarcastic little grin with Hannah, who seemed generally amused with being wiped down. She was possibly, Clarke decided, the most easy-going baby in the world, and Bellamy was pathetic. “If your last baby experience was with Octavia, you must’ve been, what...five? At most?”

“Yeah, but,” he shrugged, a little awkward, “I figured it would be like riding a bike.” 

Snorting, she asked Hannah, “Did you hear that? This man thought keeping a tiny, helpless human being alive would be like riding a bike!” When Hannah made a bubbly sound, Clarke nodded. “My thoughts exactly! Ridiculous.” 

The microwave dinged. As Clarke shook the bottle, Bellamy leaned against the bar and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don't poison her against me. She's got years before she starts resenting the authority figures in her life. And I don’t think she’s hungry. I just fed her before we came over.”

“Are you sure? Because it looked like you just put formula in a sprinkler and let her crawl through it. It doesn't absorb through the skin.” 

He snorted. “She can’t crawl yet. But whatever, don’t say I didn’t warn you. She gets really fussy if you try to feed her when she’s not hungry.”

Hannah chose this moment to grip the front of Clarke’s tank top with all the force her tiny hand could muster and yank it down all of two inches, before bobbing forward to mouth at Clarke’s collarbone. 

“Yeah,” Clarke rolled her eyes as Bellamy shifted his gaze away, either in embarrassment or out of respect for her modesty, such as it was. “She's totally not hungry. Just a big fan of boobs, for totally unrelated reasons.” 

It took only the slightest prompting for Hannah to latch eagerly onto the bottle, and Clarke motioned for Bellamy to follow her into the living room. They settled into opposite ends of the couch, Clarke with Hannah fitted into the crook of her arm and Bellamy with one leg tucked up under him like a kid. 

“So--” she prompted. 

“Thank you for doing this,” he interrupted. “I'm pretty sure I haven't said that yet. Seriously, thank you. This is a huge help.”

She shrugged and shifted the baby a bit. “Not a problem. Thanks for letting me snatch this baby away from you before you dropped her on her head or something.” He made a sneery face, but it faded into a rueful smirk. “Seriously though, how were you struggling that bad? And why didn’t you just call Octavia?”

Bellamy gave a long-suffering sigh. “I swear she wasn’t being this calm before. She wailed for a solid hour before I brought her over here, and now she’s back to normal. I have no explanation. And Octavia’s at work. I called Lincoln, since he’s got that whole gentle giant thing going on, but it turns out he’s at work too, which you probably knew. He’s the one who gave me your number. I hope that’s okay.” He suddenly looked like the fundamental weirdness of the situation had dawned on him all at once.

“I was wondering about that, but it’s cool,” Clarke reassured him. The two of them hadn't yet been in a situation that could be described as _not_ weird. “And it worked out for the best anyway. Lincoln’s great with kids, but he’s a little skittish around babies. I, on the other hand, am the baby whisperer.” She cast a smug glance down at Hannah, who was nearing the end of her bottle and hadn’t made a peep. 

“Yeah,” Bellamy conceded, “you might be. But you don’t have kids. Siblings?” 

She shook her head. “No kids, no siblings. But the closest thing I have to a brother is my friend Wells, and his wife left last year, a couple months after their son was born. We all thought it was just bad postpartum depression, but she never came back.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. He was really struggling for a while, so they came and stayed with me for a few months, until Isaiah was a little older than she is. Functionally, I was an actual parent for a while, so I got pretty good at it. Will you get me a rag out of her bag?” 

Bellamy, acknowledging that the party not currently holding an infant was always the designated getter of things, obeyed without complaint. Draping the soft cloth over her shoulder, he settled back onto the couch looking a little uneasy but didn’t say anything.

Clarke passed the now empty bottle over to him, propped Hannah on her shoulder, and gave her back a couple firm pats until she burped. She tossed the rag onto the coffee table but kept Hannah flush to her chest, craning her neck to smell the top of her head. “God, I’d forgotten how good babies smell. How do their heads always smell so good?” 

“It’s like the new car smell, but for people,” Bellamy joked, but his expression didn’t clear. 

“What’s your problem?” Clarke frowned.

He didn’t bother denying it, just folded his leg tighter under him, looking even more like a worried kid. “It’s only Friday.” 

“So? It’s one weekend. You can do it.” 

When he looked up at her, he looked genuinely distressed. (How was it possible that even his sad-dog face was attractive? Clarke needed answers.) “What if I can’t? I can’t just bring her back and tell the guys that they don’t really get a weekend to themselves.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “You can, now come here.” They had been sitting against the opposite arms of her couch, but now she shifted to the center cushion.

Warily, Bellamy scooted over until their thighs were just touching. He looked vaguely afraid.

“Here.” She pulled Hannah, who had been contentedly biting her t-shirt, off her shoulder and transferred her over to his. 

One of his (very nice) arms came up to rest under the baby’s diaper-padded bottom while his other hand went to the middle of her back. After a beat, when Hannah didn’t immediately start crying, he looked over at Clarke. “Okay. This is good. How do I keep her like this?”

Clarke couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Well, you can’t. She will eventually cry, but they always cry for a reason. So just go down the list: dirty diaper, hungry, or bored? Then either change her, feed her, or bobble her around a little and give her a soft toy. If all else fails, she’s probably just being fussy and needs a nap. Surely you remember this much from Octavia.”

“It's been,” he sighed, “a very long time since Octavia. But yeah, I remember all that. I guess, as a kid, I didn’t really comprehend how fragile babies are? And now that I know, and I know what the guys went through to adopt her...I just don’t want to do anything wrong.” 

He looked so sincere, Clarke couldn’t help but bump her shoulder against his, soft enough to not jostle Hannah. “Bellamy. It’s going to be fine, I promise.” After a second of deliberation, she groaned-- already regretting this-- and said, “And I’ll text you my work schedule. If you need anything when I’m not working, I’ll come over.” 

Brow furrowed, eyes dark, and lips slightly parted, his expression was unreadable. There was a long second before he said a single, emphatic and slightly baffled-sounding, “ _Thank you_.” Another pause, a tiny head shake. “I mean it. That’s...way above and beyond, especially for a neighbor you don’t know well or like all that much.” 

She scoffed. “I like you fine. And maybe I’m just investing in some future favor I’ll ask you, Godfather-style.” 

“Honestly, if you help me out this weekend, I’m pretty sure there’s no favor I would say no to.” He didn’t look like he was kidding. 

Clarke hummed. “You say that now...” 

 

Okay, realistically, Clarke knew by Sunday that she’d probably never cash in that favor. Well, she might ask a favor sometime, but she couldn’t in good conscience claim that Bellamy owed her something for this specifically. Because she was having a shockingly good time.

She guessed she hadn’t really thought about how much she missed Wells and Isaiah. Wells still texted her pictures and videos of him, five times a week at minimum and five times a day on holidays. But that wasn’t the same as actually taking care of a kid, being responsible for it but also being rewarded with all of those tiny, sweet moments that no one could truly capture in a photo. God knows she wasn’t ready for kids of her own, but there was still something incredibly gratifying about feeling parental.

And babies were great in general, but Hannah was great in particular. The warm mom-vibe was definitely the end of the similarities between Wells and Isaiah and Bellamy and Hannah. For one, Isaiah had always been a noisy baby. First it was colic and then it was straight-up _incessant_ babbling. Clarke had loved that, and she and Wells would joke that he’d be giving speeches by his first birthday. But Hannah was quiet, and she loved that too. Aside from garden variety crying, the only noises she made included laughter and cheerful babbling. Clarke was convinced that Miller and Monty couldn’t have gotten any luckier if they tried. 

Another key difference between the two baby/caregiver pairs was the fact that seeing Wells with Isaiah had never made her want to fuck him half to death. Maybe it was because they were, after one failed attempt at dating in high school, basically siblings. Maybe it was just Bellamy. But hand to God, when she let herself into his apartment late Sunday afternoon and saw him asleep on the couch with Hannah on his chest, her only in a diaper and him completely shirtless... She had to turn around, go into his kitchen, and drink a glass of water. She still wasn’t necessarily warmed up to his personality, earnest babysitting aside, but she was only human, alright? There had to be some sort of evolutionary trip wire in her head that saw a beautiful, half-naked guy with a baby and triggered brain-wide sirens. Possibly flashing lights and sprinklers. 

(Don’t get her started on hearing him sing to her when she couldn’t sleep, some song about a girl named Girl that was clearly meant to teach Latin noun declensions.)

When he woke up, Clarke was sitting cross-legged in the recliner, feeding Hannah and fucking up his Netflix recommendations by watching Food Network shows instead of his queued up documentaries. She nodded at him. “That’s a good look on you.”

“What,” he asked, groggy but somehow still unbearably smug as he stretched his arms over his head, “shirtless? Thanks.” 

She cast a sidelong glance at his chest. _God_ , he had such a nice body. How did a history professor get that nice of a body? Did he write his doctoral thesis with one hand and lift weights with the other? Fuck this guy. “That, yeah,” she admitted, “and covered in dried baby slobber.” 

That got his attention. Grumbling, he disappeared for a minute and came back, still shirtless but now slightly shiny from having obviously wiped himself down. He was going to kill her. Was he doing this on purpose? What a bastard. “Why so naked anyway? And why’d you call me over?” 

Truthfully, he’d been texting her ten minutes before she got off work since Saturday and just telling her to come by if she could. Usually nothing was going wrong, so she figured he could just use the extra set of hands, but today he’d sounded a little more urgent. Fortunately, she only worked until four on Sundays, as there wasn’t too much demand for tattoos on the Lord’s day.

“She’d been really fussy for like thirty minutes,” he said, coming around to lean against the back of the chair. Clarke was fairly sure he could see straight down her shirt, but she couldn’t be bothered. He was walking around half naked-- if seeing her chest did anything for him, well, fair was fair. “But I read online that skin-to-skin contact is soothing, so I gave it a shot. Either it worked or she wore herself out, because she went out like a light. But that was only like fifteen minutes before you got off work, so she’s gonna want another nap soon.”

On cue, Hannah gave a milky little yawn, and Clarke couldn’t help but echo it. It had been a boring day at the shop, and she'd been up late with the two of them the night before.

“Tell you what,” Bellamy pushed off the back of the chair, “you nap with her. I need to get dinner started anyway.” 

Clarke didn’t bother arguing-- a nap sounded great. In hindsight, she would blame the sleepiness for dissolving her brain-to-mouth filter, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “I don’t have to be shirtless, do I?”

Bellamy paused mid-step, visibly caught off guard, but only for a moment. He shrugged, casual, but his grin was lascivious. “Totally up to you. It’s not a requirement, but I won’t stop you.” 

Clarke woke up a little over an hour later, completely content to be stretched out on a comfy couch with a soft weight on her chest. A quick glance revealed that Hannah was still out, one fat little hand fisted the neck of Clarke’s shirt. Settling a hand on the curve of the baby’s back, she closed her eyes again. This was too nice to rush away from. 

In the end, she was woken up by Bellamy’s knuckles sliding against her stomach as he scooped Hannah off her. Seeing her eyes open, he shushed her and carried the still-sleeping baby back to his room. 

“Wake up,” he tugged a strand of her hair as he walked past the couch again on the way to the kitchen. At some point, he'd put on a shirt. Damn. “Food’s ready.” 

“It’s like six o’clock at the latest. Who has dinner that early?” Clarke grumbled, levering herself into an upright position.

“Two kinds of people,” Bellamy informed her, pushing a plate into her hand. “People who teach eight am classes on Mondays, and people whose friends are coming over to pick up their baby at six thirty. Especially if those people would like their friends to take their baby while she’s still asleep and go straight home before she wakes up. And it turns out, I’m both.” 

Clarke said something to the effect of, “Yeah, fair,” but it was mostly muffled by all the taco in her mouth. She had learned, over the course of the weekend, that Bellamy was a really good cook, and she had zero shame when it came to eating whatever he put in front of her. 

By the time Monty and Miller let themselves in-- because Bellamy somehow never remembered to lock his own front door?-- they were passing a bag of tortilla chips between themselves and watching Worst Cooks in America. (Because “you already messed up my recommendations, so we might as well. Next time, just make your own profile.”) 

“Hey,” Monty called, then he spotted her. “Oh, hey, it’s Clarke, right?” 

“Yeah, hey,” she nodded sheepishly. “Nice to see you again.”

“Oh, Clarke as in, left-my-restaurant-a-shitty-review-then-a-really-nice-one Clarke?” Miller clarified. 

“...Yes?”

“Cool, nice to officially meet you.” Glancing between the two of them, he asked, “So do you guys just not eat separately as a rule now, or...?” 

Clarke pointedly did not blush, because it wasn’t like that, and her ever-growing attraction to her awful neighbor had nothing to do with anything. She certainly wasn’t going to analyze that “next time” comment when she got home, not at all. 

Bellamy just rolled with it. “She’s kind of been helping out this weekend. Found out I forgot what it was like to babysit an actual baby for more than just one night, so I had to call in reinforcements.” 

“Reinforcements being your neighbor that you barely know? To take care of our child?” Monty glanced apologetically at Clarke. “No offense.” 

“None taken.” 

Shrugging, all Bellamy said was, “She’s the baby whisperer.”

“In that case, Clarke,” Monty smiled, happy to take his word for it, “thanks for keeping our baby alive.” 

“To be fair,” Clarke put in, “your kid is easily the happiest, quietest baby I’ve ever met in my life. Definitely tied with my nephew for number one best baby I know. And Bellamy tends to feed me when I come over, so it wasn’t a hardship or anything.”

Miller actually laughed at that. “She’s great, right? I just hope she stays this perfect and we don’t mess her up too bad. And I’ve told this guy, if he ever needs a job, he’s more than welcome to cook at David’s, but he’s all “I love my job” this and “I’ve got a Ph.D” that. Whatever.” 

After they collected Hannah and left, Bellamy rounded on Clarke with a look that bordered on incredulous. “Okay, I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard Nathan Miller say all at once in ten years.” 

“I complimented his baby and his best friend, of course he talked to me. For the record, I meant all of it, but I also knew I had some damage control to do after Yelp-gate.” 

His look turned quizzical. “Do you not have friends?”

“I-- Yes?” 

“Better question: are you trying to steal _my_ friends? Because why bother doing damage control?”

“Calm down,” she snatched the tortilla chips back from his side of the couch. “For one, I’m planning on spending a lot of time at David’s, so he might as well like me. And anyway, I’m friends with Lincoln and your sister and now you, ish--” 

“Me, ish? Thanks.”

“--so I might as well just integrate into the whole friend group. I’ll bring some of my own, don’t worry. It’ll be great. Anyway, what are you moaning about? Are we not friends-ish now?” 

A more subtle person would’ve kept quiet, maybe dropped some sweet comment about how he'd be a great father one day, and left at the end of the night with the pleasant sensation that something had shifted, they had bonded a little. Clarke tried not to buy into gender roles, but from experience, she did find that it was mostly good to bypass subtlety with men.

“I mean, I wouldn’t add the qualifier,” he said, affronted, “but damn, if that’s how you feel.” 

Clarke suddenly felt very warm and snuggled down deeper into the couch, failing to not grin openly. “Shut up. We’re friends. I just wasn’t sure you’d forgiven me for knocking you out yet.” 

“You weren’t the only one to hit me with your car that week, actually, just the first. At least it was just your door and not the whole vehicle.”

“Yeah, Murphy told me about that. You should consider doing anything other than whatever it is you currently do around cars.” 

“ _Plus_ , I told you, I owe you like twenty favors, or one very large one. We can call it nineteen.” 

Clarke raised her hands and gave him a side-eye. “Wow, if being friends with me counts as a favor, I think I’m the one that gets to be insulted now.” 

He just rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Do you have any salsa at your place? I think we’re out.”

“Yeah, be right back. Get the next Worst Cooks going while I’m gone? Or are we moving on to Cutthroat Kitchen?”

“Cutthroat Kitchen, obviously. You sold me on Dark Alton Brown.” 

“You won't be disappointed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this one is longer than my usual chapters for this? And less funny, more relationship development. I just happened to be finishing up when 303 aired tonight, and all the heartbreak was excellent motivation to finish. We deserve nice things. Three items to note: 
> 
> 1\. I definitely named the baby Hannah before finding out it was Monty's mom's name, so, cool. Good to know I'm psychic.
> 
> 2\. I feel like the good-with-kids dynamic is usually the other way around? But lbr, canon Clarke had medical training and definitely knows what to do with babies, and Bellamy was like 5-6 when Octavia was a baby. It's been almost 18 years. He can parent the shit out of kids, but babies...he's gotta be a little rusty. (Related, can we talk about how that 7-9 month range is the cutest a baby will ever be? Bc it is. And writing this made my biological clock feel like a time bomb.)
> 
> 3\. [There is really a Latin declension song for first declension nouns.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEz97M_st0k) It's about a girl named Puella and her boyfriend Tom? No clue where this video came from, but I fucking loved it as a freshman Latin student. Presumably Bellamy would be less weird/falsetto than the original guy.
> 
> (Also, because I am fundamentally uncreative, Bellamy's phone number is just 555 + my own phone number all scrambled up.)

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to shoot me some neighbors-based prompts [on tumblr](http://maryam0revna.tumblr.com/ask)!


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